Merced College leader addresses letter, nude photo controversy

A Merced College administrator, in a campuswide message, attempted to shed some light on a controversial and somewhat mysterious issue about which school officials previously have been mum.

An email written by Chris Vitelli, the vice president of student services, shared with campus employees some information about an anonymous letter and its ramifications. The letter first came to light publicly in an article published in the Merced Sun-Star.

The letter in question criticized how Vitelli handled the discipline of a student whose partially nude photo was circulated through an online educational platform to dozens of classmates in spring 2015.

“That student was never disciplined and is still on campus,” the letter says. “We dread having to take classes with him.”

The letter, which includes several misspellings and an incorrect date, is signed “Concerned students” and was dropped off for the board of trustees on Feb.1, according to the former campus police chief, Merced County Sheriff’s Sgt. Vince Gallagher.

The letter’s author appears to have been under the impression Vitelli would be named as interim president by the board at that meeting, and the letter threatens to share the photo publicly. Vitelli, however, was not given the president’s position. Susan Walsh, the Learning Resources Center director, was named interim president at the Feb. 1 meeting.

The board of trustees did not see the letter before casting its vote that night, according to Gallagher.

The letter was at the center of a dispute between Merced College and the Merced County Sheriff’s Office, which oversaw campus police for 16 years. The letter was checked for fingerprints by a private detective the college hired in March, according to an invoice obtained by the Sun-Star.

Gallagher has told the Sun-Star that Walsh wanted him to look for fingerprints, a claim administrators have denied. Gallagher said the administration wanted to see if faculty members were involved in the letter, which the college also has denied.

Walsh told the Sun-Star last week that no professors’ offices were dusted for prints, but noted that campus employees’ fingerprints are taken as part of the normal hiring process.

In his campuswide email, Vitelli defended his decisions surrounding the student’s photo, which featured a young man wearing a shirt and nothing else as he appears to photograph himself in the mirror with a cellphone.

“In an effort to put an end to the speculation, I am personally addressing the components of the letter directly related to a student disciplinary investigation,” he wrote in the Friday email.

Vitelli said he highlighted the “pertinent” part of the letter. “Related to this student disciplinary investigation, the letter has many inaccuracies regarding the sequence of events and the facts surrounding this investigation,” he wrote.

The student who appears in the photo was removed from a class by campus police, according to Vitelli. The student was questioned by police and college administrators, he said, who believed the student to be a victim.

“After a thorough investigation by campus police, Sgt. Vince Gallagher and others involved concluded that this student was most likely the victim of a cyber attack,” the email says. “Other parties, including the president and senior administrators of the college at the time, decided that since this was the conclusion of the investigation no disciplinary action should be taken on this student.”

Gallagher has told the Sun-Star he believed the student was a victim.

The letter’s author also appears to be upset over the board cutting ties with more than one administrator without explanation, including former administrators Kevin Kistler and Everett Lovelace. Most recently that included former President Ron Taylor, who was placed on paid administrative leave in January shortly after announcing his intention to retire.

“We as a group of students are very concerned about the high turnover in leadership the past two years,” the letter says.

This story was originally published August 8, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Merced College leader addresses letter, nude photo controversy."